


Arm Candy

by Arsenic



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Escorts, Escort Service, F/M, Sex Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:40:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22391914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/pseuds/Arsenic
Summary: Natasha wants to land a new client for her consulting business.  In this case, it'd help to have a date.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 56
Kudos: 225
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Arm Candy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [viudanegra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/viudanegra/gifts).



> Love to chocbox mods for the challenge, and to my recip for the hooker prompt. I know this is more escort-side of that, but I hope it at least scratches some of the itch. Thank you to my beta for making it a tighter, cleaner story, all remaining mistakes are my own.

Scanning the prices on the well-organized, cleanly-designed site, Natasha had a moment of wondering if she’d taken the wrong career path after all. Then again, the sex work she’d been headed for prior to making herself valuable as an assassin hadn’t functioned like this. 

Shaking her head at herself, she sifted through her options. If she was going to pay a man to accompany her to one of her wine-and-dine events for a prospective client, she needed someone who would look impressive on her arm, know enough to form complete sentences, and not step on her metaphorical toes.

Narrowing it down to three profiles, she was surprised to find herself drawn to Grant Buchanan’s. He wasn’t her type. Too large, too blond, too…attractive, really. Like the kind of men who watch themselves for their entire gym workout. But there was something about the writing style of his profile. It didn’t have the aggressive sales pitch many of the others did. Rather, he talked about his favorite room at the Met—early Italian Renaissance, that was fine, they could agree to disagree—his love of ‘80s movies, and his refusal to eat pizza that came from anywhere outside Brooklyn. 

He seemed, despite his looks, to be a guy you could have a conversation with. After a moment’s hesitation, Natasha clicked on the “contact,” link and wrote, “I am looking to purchase six hours of your time, four for a business dinner wherein professional attire will be a necessity, two for unwinding. The dinner in question is on the thirtieth of this month, beginning at seven, at The Clocktower. Please let me know if you are available and interested, and if you will need me to provide attire. I look forward to working with you. Natasha.”

She signed the terms and conditions necessary to even send the message, finished her glass of red, and went to bed.

* * *

Steve got to the hospital at around nine, which was probably two hours after Bucky’s physical therapy had ended, and at least four after his PTSD session, but even if Bucky could have driven, they didn’t have the money for a car, and taking public transportation on his own was out until the dissociative episodes were under control.

When he reached the waiting room where Bucky liked to camp out, Steve found him holding a coffee cup and talking quietly with Dr. Cho, the woman who’d done the surgeries working on connecting his neural pathways to the machinery in his prosthetic arm. Bucky…didn’t really talk to people who weren’t Steve, or actively treating him. Bucky definitely didn’t quirk a little smile and—holy shit. Steve knew that look. That was the look Bucky used to give girls in high school before he asked them to dance.

Quietly, Steve backed out of the room and went around the corner to check his email, the one he kept for his third—and most lucrative—job. There were a number of messages from regulars, and four new ones, which he’d need to sort through and vet. He read through them quickly, three of them being the usual written-word version of a catcall and the offer of money. The fourth, though. It wasn’t that Steve didn’t get used as arm candy. That was probably seventy-five percent of what he did as an escort. But generally, it was for social functions. A fundraiser here, a family wedding there, things where people were expected to have a plus one.

Business dinner was a little unusual. Still, Ms. Romanova’s tone was professional, and dinner at The Clocktower was hard to argue with. Steve doubted he had enough money to sit at the bar. He wrote back, informing her that he had proper attire and would need to run a basic background check, but barring any problems, he would be pleased to take the contract.

Then he laughed. _Unwinding,_ indeed.

* * *

Grant Buchanan did not exist, which wasn’t really shocking, all things being equal. If Natasha had gone the sex worker route so many of the women she’d grown up with had, she probably would have chosen an alias as well. That said, she hadn’t worked her way from KGB-defector-possibly-(probably)-a-spy, to one of the CIA’s most trusted consultants without having a few tricks up her sleeve.

It took a bit of work and some patience, but she found one Steven Grant Rogers. She wasn’t looking for the sake of prying so much as to ensure her safety, and to make certain she had blackmail material as leverage should he try anything hinky. 

It wasn’t paranoia if you were an ex-assassin for a sometimes-enemy nation with a current top-secret security clearance.

That said, given what she discovered, it was hard not to feel a little dirty for having looked. Rogers had grown up in subsidized housing, lost his single parent at sixteen and apparently been fostered by another family in an attached unit, the Barnes. At eighteen, three weeks out of high school, he’d enlisted. Less than four years later, he’d been dishonorably discharged for disobeying orders. Natasha was willing to bet, seeing as how there didn’t seem to be any prison time involved, that someone’d had it out for Rogers.

A little more digging revealed that the orders he’d disobeyed were to stand down when attempting to infiltrate enemy territory to rescue…oh. A James Buchanan Barnes. So, possibly there had been issues of national security. Or, a truly dicktastic CO. She poked enough to determine that Barnes received an other-than-honorable discharge, which suggested he’d stood up for Rogers to the wrong person. 

The kind of guy who risked his career and military benefits for another guy was unlikely to cause her problems. Also, a quick check of employment records showed that Rogers had a forty-hour a week job at SoHo Art Supplies which he’d held consistently for the two years since his discharge, and a twenty-hour gig at Hearts Coffee, where he’d started about a year ago. Barnes and he were co-signed on a lease for a studio in one of the ever-dwindling non-rehabbed properties in Bushwick.

Curious where the money from the escorting was going—since it wasn’t to rent, and there was no indication of a drug or gambling habit—she looked at Barnes again. On the second go-round, she caught what she hadn’t on the first: Barnes probably _should_ have been medically discharged. She wasn’t going to hack hospital records, since she didn’t absolutely need to know, and also, that seemed less excusable than making sure she wasn’t hiring a professional killer, but there was enough wording in Barnes’ file to suggest he’d needed considerable treatment upon arriving back stateside. And with those discharges, neither of them would have had access to medical benefits. Nor could Rogers claim Barnes as a dependent without marrying him, even assuming the full-time retail position was providing him with insurance.

Natasha rubbed the back of her neck, feeling a tension headache coming on. Quietly, she said, “Only the good die young.”

She’d tip generously.

* * *

Natasha Romanova’s history check came up suspiciously blank. Oh, sure, there were some scant details, but nothing like a normal background, which generally revealed, at least, schools attended, jobs held, a few previous addresses, anything law-related such as divorces or unpaid parking tickets. Steve asked his boss, “What, like she’s in witness protection?”

Phil frowned. “She’s a Russian national with U.S. Citizenship who consults for the government. That’s what the report _does_ say. Best guess? Some kind of spook.”

“You think I’m having dinner with a spy.”

Phil shrugged. “Maybe. Could be an analyst they don’t want found. I guess it’s possible she is in protection, although seems odd someone in that position would risk an unknown element.”

It was a good point.

“Steve, if you’re uncomfortable, you know you can just turn down the contract. It’s not like you have trouble attracting clients.”

Steve nodded. “Yeah, no, of course, I know.”

Phil tilted his head. “Everything okay with Bucky?”

Steve hadn’t just stumbled onto this job. Not that he minded it, or was ashamed, but sex work hadn’t been his immediate go-to upon returning to the states. Phil’s husband, Clint, who was ex-army and in Bucky’s PTSD support group, had left group early one night to get some air, process in quiet, and caught Steve dumpster-diving behind the hospital. Clint had looked at him without pity and asked, “How do you feel about having dinners and going to events with people who are lonely?”

Steve had blinked. Clint had said, “My husband runs a business that doesn’t require a sterling resume. You should sit down with him. I know what you’re doing for Barnes, he talks about you all the fuckoff time in group. More than enough of a recommendation, if you ask me.”

Steve’s hands had shaken from anger and hunger and helplessness as he’d hissed, “He’s my brother.”

Clint hadn’t flinched. Instead he’d nodded. “Yeah. I had one of those.”

Steve had let Clint set up an introduction. He’d never asked—despite somewhat intense curiosity—how Phil had gotten into the business, or how Clint and he had met. Steve started by taking some of the lower paying jobs that were on the purely legal side, but then Dr. Cho spoke to him about the experimental biotech program she could get Bucky into, and well. Stepping slightly over that line had provided a lot more money for not _that_ much more effort. And Phil was always there, reminding Steve he could say no.

Steve rubbed a hand over his face and said, “Actually, I kinda… I think he was flirting with Dr. Cho last night.”

Phil smiled. “That’s great.”

“Yeah.” Steve was quiet for a long moment. “This is going to sound weird, but I liked the way Ms. Romanova…I liked her professionalism.”

“Honestly, Steve, I don’t think she’s a threat. If she was, more likely she’d have a record that looked wholly normal. Gut feeling is she has shit in her past she’s not proud of, and for a few favors, the US government wiped that slate. Would that we all were allowed that.”

Steve sighed. “Truer words.”

“There’s, ah. There’s one other thing.”

“Hm?”

Phil handed Steve a photocopy of Natasha Romanova’s driver’s license. Steve blinked. “Who—who looks good on their _driver’s license_?”

“Enjoy your dinner,” Phil said, entirely too sweetly.

* * *

Steve Rogers in his pictures was one thing. Steve Rogers in a tailored three-piece gray cashmere was…evidently something else. On the upside, the flicker in his eyes when she walked up in her red Tahari told her she came off a little better in living color than in whatever government-issue ID he’d managed to drag up for her. 

She slid into the seat at the bar next to him. They’d agreed to meet thirty minutes ahead of time. “Mr. Buchanan.”

“Ms. Romanova. You—” He smiled down at the bar for a moment before meeting her eyes again. “Red’s your color. But then I’m guessing you know that.”

She let her eyes sweep down him and then back up. “You’re one to talk.”

His smile was…nice. She wasn’t used to that. Her kind, when she bothered having a kind, was usually the type who started out predatory and ended the night begging. She liked working for things. Also, playing with her food. He said, “So, tell me, how can I make this event easier and more successful for you?”

“Careful, you keep up at this cruising altitude, I’m gonna fall in love.”

He laughed and took a sip of what appeared to be soda water. If there was anything stronger in it, Natasha couldn’t smell it. He said, “I can imagine worse fates.”

“Hm. Well, I’m wooing some potential clients tonight. Private sector, which is branching out for me. Old boys club. They’re bringing their wives. Most of whom will be younger than me, despite the execs being older, and on display so as to non-verbally inform me of what I should actually be doing with my life. How much do you know about defense contractors?”

He blinked slowly. “Enough to know I’d rather give myself three hundred paper cuts and go on a leisurely swim in shark-infested waters than sit down to dinner with one.”

“If you walk out of here, you’re giving me my deposit back.”

“Fair, but I’m not the kind of person to leave another person to face that alone, so you’re still out the money.”

She laughed. It caught her by surprise, which few things did anymore. “A true knight of the realm.”

“You need me to give these guys the idea that I can play on their level, but I don’t, because I defer to you, as my romantic partner.”

“Got it in one. Can you?”

“You’re gonna want to tip me half-way through. Wait until we’re alone, yeah?”

“Arrogance isn’t charming,” she told him.

“No,” he agreed. “But that wasn’t arrogance. That was me letting you know I’m good at this part of the job.”

“Oh?” she raised an eyebrow.

There was a calm certainty in his expression as he said, “I know more about action and the politics of it than any of these men ever will.” He lowered his voice. “And I _like_ deferring to women who are smarter than me.”

Natasha kind of already wanted to tip him.

* * *

Natasha Romanova was a force of nature. Working as an escort, Steve met a lot of different people, who wanted varying things from him, and for the most part, he liked the aspect of the job that was about growing relationships and helping others, even if it was only for a night. Sure, he had clients who were a pain in the ass, and once or twice he’d had to tell Phil to ban a client for inappropriate or threatening behavior, but a lot of the time the people he worked for were just lonely, often through no fault of their own. Steve, more than most, knew the world wasn’t the easiest place to get along in.

Natasha wasn’t like anyone he’d ever met. She was a natural at directing a conversation the way she wanted it to go. He watched as she turned one of the wives’ offhand comment about their ski chalet in Aspen into a path for discussing recently implemented security protocols at Carson without giving away classified information or seeming self-serving. He also watched her turn shoptalk about base armaments into a chat about a chamber music festival, as it seemed one of the wives was heavily involved in her Junior League.

He played along, as she had asked, mostly finding it difficult to remember to open his mouth. Listening to her was mesmerizing. He must have managed, though, because once the couples had left and she was signing the check, she said, “You weren’t kidding about being good at that part.”

Steve’s jaw nearly dropped. “There is no way in the seven hells you needed me here for anything.”

She looked over at him. “Maybe, maybe not. It wasn’t predictable how they’d respond to me as a single woman, and I dislike unpredictability. Being heteronormatively partnered greases wheels you might not even realize are turning.”

Steve inclined his head to acknowledge the point. “Not that it’s any of my business, but are men of interest to you, or when you said unwinding—”

She grinned, and for the first time all night looked young, younger than Steve, even, maybe. “Oh. You understood that part just fine.”

* * *

Natasha tipped the valet and got in her car, liking the way Steve eyed it appreciatively. Her place was on the Upper East Side. It was nice, but not particularly fashionable, which was half of what she liked about it. She’d rented a room in a hotel for the evening in preparation, but evidently she was getting old or tired, or both, because despite the risks of taking a stranger to her home, it was the only place she wanted to be.

He didn’t complain about the fact that she was on the tenth floor of a walk-up, and when Galka poked her head out to see who had dared enter her abode, Steve said, “Well, hey there, pretty kitty.”

She didn’t regret bringing him as much as she should have. Which was to say, she didn’t regret it at all. “I’m getting some water, want anything?”

“Water’d be nice.” He was clearly distracted by her cat. She found this acceptable.

She poured a couple of glasses from the fridge pitcher and went to hand him his. He had gotten on the floor with his back to Galka. She gave him the glass. “You know something about cats.”

“A friend and I have always liked to charm the ones in the alleys.” He looked up at her. “Not being particularly professional, am I?”

“I needed a professional for dinner, and I got one. I could use someone to just be with for a bit.”

Galka began sniffing at him, but he paid her no attention. Natasha watched her cat be more brave than she ever had been, except maybe when she’d had no choice. Before she knew it, she was saying, “I ran a background check.”

“Ah. I don’t use my real name. Kinda for that reason.”

“I have a lot of connections, and I’m good at what I do, and you use your middle name and your best friend’s middle name, it wasn’t that hard, okay?” she snapped.

He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “All right.”

“I—I won’t use the information for anything. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t a plant. Stranger shit has happened.”

His laughter was a little bitter in a way she didn’t like. “Probably is the kind of job dishonorably discharged army guys do. What made you decide I wasn’t?”

“Honestly? Your story is so fucking bizarre that nobody in their right mind would use it as a cover for an assassin. A DD for disobeying orders but returning successfully with one of ours? Jesus wept, you must have pissed someone off but good.”

“It’s possible I have an issue with bullies. Also, authority for authority’s sake. According to Bucky.”

“And you enlisted in the military?”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but a college education here is pretty expensive. And it’s hard to get much of anywhere without it. Being poor isn’t exactly a barrier to service, and being white, cis male, and straight enough to pass, makes it pretty easy to stay.”

“It was easy, huh?” Natasha tilted her head.

“Well, it would have been. Kinda.”

“Honestly, I’m amazed you made it through boot camp.”

“Bucky. He’s always been good at talking me down. Making me see sense.”

“Good thing he wasn’t around to talk you out of going to get him,” she said softly.

Rogers looked up at her. “Not even he’s that good.” 

She smiled. “What would you have done? In college? What did you want to do?”

He smiled back, wistful. “Art. I was gonna be sensible about it, of course, graphic design. Mom always drilled into me that I needed to be able to feed myself. But I was also gonna cram in every art history, drawing, and painting elective I could and still graduate in a timely fashion.”

“You still draw?”

“It’s…not so much that I don’t, as, well. Three jobs, you know? I’m mostly sleeping when I’m not working or eating or making sure Bucky’s getting to wherever he needs to be.”

“If I paid for the rest of the night, would you draw me and sleep beside me? Just…just sleep. I’m.” She thought about the right word for it. “Cold.”

Rogers finished his water. “Let me make a couple of calls. Then, yeah, I can do that.”

* * *

She was easy to draw. Well, no, that wasn’t it, exactly. Her lines were easy, broad and clean. The quiet in her, the way shattered pieces seemed to lie underneath the surface, carefully taped and glued and painstakingly painted to look whole… Steve knew he could try his whole damn life and never get any of that. He was more tempted than he wanted to admit.

Natasha read as he drew. Something she liked. She would smile occasionally, as though a line had been clever. He lost time in the familiar muscle movement of the sketching, the slip into a place where Steve knew himself and what he wanted and what he was doing.

He was surprised when she said, with a tinge of regret, “I—my eyes are drooping.”

Blinking, he pushed the paper toward her. She looked at it and he found himself holding his breath. It had been so long since he’d shown anyone his work. She laughed, a shocked, punched out sound, and said, “You needn’t have bothered with the background check if you’d started here, huh?”

“I don’t—”

She shook her head. “I’m just not used to…people noticing I’m human.”

“You’re tired,” he said.

“Yes.” She looked up at him. “But I have been for a long time.”

“Can I—”

She watched him. “I don’t want sex. Not…not right now.”

“No, that wasn’t—let me take care of you.”

She opened her mouth and Steve could see the list of questions forming in her mind. After a moment, she exhaled. “Yes.”

He grinned, not having expected it. Coming around the table where he’d been working, he lifted her up in a bridal carry. She laughed again, still sounding surprised, but with an edge of happiness. Steve said, “Are you pure muscle? Wow.”

“Oh, romantic.”

“I mean, I like a woman who can hand my ass to me, so I suppose it depends,” he said, carrying her into the bathroom. He set her on the toilet and turned around to find her toothbrush. Squeezing some toothpaste onto it, he handed it to her, then put himself to drawing a bath. “You brush, I’ll be right back.”

He rummaged in the kitchen until he found baking soda and a few packets of mint tea. When he got back to the bathroom, she was rinsing out her mouth. Naked. She wiped her mouth and said, “Hey there, soldier.”

“Haha,” he said. “For the record, I wasn’t planning on you getting in the bath fully clothed.” He worked on the temperature, sprinkled the baking soda, and steeped the tea. “All right.”

She slid in and said, “I’m gonna have to remember that tea trick.”

“Essential oils are better, but with a professional dinner first, I didn’t bring my bag of tricks.”

“So, not a Boy Scout?”

“I just made you a bath that was the equivalent of creating fire by rubbing two sticks together.” Steve opened his mouth to back his way out of that, realized there was no helping the problem, and said, “Oh, shut it,” to her peal of laughter. 

“Don’t worry, I’ll sew your badge on personally.”

“Jesus break-dancing Christ.”

“That’s a good one, I’m keeping that.” She smiled, relaxing back into the bath. “This is fantastic, though, truly. Thank you.”

“It’s been nice being appreciated for something other than my pectoral muscles,” he said dryly, but not untruthfully. “Have any clean sheets? PJs?”

“Linen closet in the hall, lowest drawer in the closet in my room.”

He left and changed the sheets on her bed, putting the dirty ones in the hamper also in the closet, and headed back to the bathroom with a pair of cotton boxers and an old t-shirt.

She had gotten out, and was wrapped in the towel, brushing her hair out. He took the brush from her, and said, “Braid?”

“Um—”

“I’m competent. Bucky dated a lot in high school. I didn’t. You’d be surprised the stuff you can learn being the third wheel to a couple.”

“Without having a lot of normal experience to base this statement on, I’m still pretty sure that’s odd.”

“I’m gonna need you to shut up and enjoy me pampering you, now.”

“Oh, is that what you need?”

Steve dug his fingers into her scalp in a trick he’d learned from one of the escorts who was finishing cosmetic school and worked as an assistant at one of the fancy salons near Madison. She said, “Oh, fuck, okay, you know what, ballpark, how much would it cost me to just have you as my kept boy?”

Steve said, “Mhm, that’s what I thought,” and then got serious about the head massage. She rested her weight against him and whimpered in pleasure. It was the kind of sound someone made when torture hadn’t broken them, but kindness might. Steve knew. He’d heard it from Bucky a few times in those first months back.

He said, “Okay, it’s good. I got you,” and kept going until her knees gave out, at which point he sat her back down on the toilet, brushed out her hair and put it in a neat braid. He took the towel and hung it up, then helped her into the pajamas, and scooped her up again. 

“As a point of order,” she mumbled, “I could, technically, make it to bed on my own, if I wanted to.”

“I know,” Steve said, because he did. It didn’t make him happy, but he knew she could probably do a lot more. He took her to where he’d pulled back the covers. She made a sound of pure bliss and he said, “Yeah, that’s one of my favorite feelings, too.”

He had stripped to his button down and bare feet earlier, before drawing. He took the shirt off and laid it on the dresser, then followed with his pants and belt. Crawling into the bed in his briefs and undershirt, he asked, “Cuddles or no?”

“Could you not call them that?”

“Totally platonic skin contact necessary for human survival, or pass?” he restated.

“I hate you,” she said, draping herself atop him.

“Feeling that.”

* * *

She woke to her alarm, alone. Which made sense, because he’d mentioned his coffee job shift was five o’ clock. Natasha liked her days to start absolutely no earlier than six. On days after a business dinner, she treated herself to seven.

Stretching, she stumbled into the kitchen, where there was a note next to the picture he’d drawn—still a little shocking in the depth of it—that read, “’Morning, fireball. Made you some coffee, also some fruit salad (fridge, don’t worry, I found the tiny marshmallows, they’re in there). Obviously you know how to get hold of me if you are interested in being a sugar mama, but if you just wanted to see me again sometime, without the business transaction element, my number’s below. Enjoy your day.”

She poured herself the coffee. It was a tiny bit stronger than she usually made it, but also smoother. She’d have to ask him what he’d done. If she called, of course. Or made an arrangement.

The fruit salad had a touch of orange juice and maybe honey in it, tart and sweet. She face-planted on the table and said, “Go to work, Romanova. Just. Go to work.”

* * *

Technically, it had been a pretty long day. He’d had four hours at the coffee shop that morning, and another eight at the art store, after not much more than three hours of sleep. He let himself into their studio, where Bucky was standing over the stove, watching something boil. He said, “Hey honey, I’m home.”

Bucky looked at him for a long moment. “Did you get tipped really well last night?”

Steve smiled. “No. I mean, well, yes, actually, stupidly well, but that’s not—”

“No, Stevie, no.”

“Buck—”

“I might be bananas flambe half the time at the moment, but I have known you since before your voice broke and that expression on your face has always and forever only meant one thing, and this, right here, right now, is not _American Gigolo_.”

“I…feel like you might not actually have seen that movie.”

“I have totally seen that movie and I stand by my reference. Steve, fuck. You—we had one rule when I agreed to let you do this. One fucking rule.”

Steve let the assertion that he’d been allowed anything slide, because in truth, if Bucky had kept fighting him, he probably would have stopped. “I’m not in love with her.”

“No, but you’re considering it.”

“I gave her my number,” Steve told him. “To call me as a guy she’d like to go on a date with. Maybe she will, maybe she won’t. But…there was something. A point of connection. That’s all.”

Bucky rubbed at his forehead and mumbled, “That’s all, he says.” All the same, Steve could see some of the tension leaking out from him.

Steve asked, “You making dinner?”

“Don’t get too excited, I only added vegetables to the ramen.”

“I’ll get excited if I darned well please,” Steve said.

“Yeah. That’s for sure.”

* * *

It took Natasha three days to remind herself that she was an adult who could do what she wished and sure, maybe this was a bit risky, but he’d slept by her for a few hours and woken up and made her coffee and not killed her, and that was…those were all perfectly good reasons to text Steve Rogers. Midday, while taking a walk to clear her mind, she stabbed ten numbers into her phone, and the words, “I like chocolate tastings.”

She wasn’t surprised when his text didn’t come back until around seven that evening. “gonna call me shishi if I say hotel chocolat?”

“would it matter?”

“no, but I prefer you think of me as cutting edge.”

She laughed and typed. “the two r mutually exclusive?”

“the hipsters @ the art store tell me so. quite soberly.”

“ur problem might b ur info source.”

“never!”

She took a deep breath. “this weekend?”

“ive got 2 hrs btwn my morning shift @ coffee shop and closing the store. 1 – 3?”

“i can set that aside 4u.”

“So sweet.” 

She considered leaving it there. After a moment, she responded, “that’s my line.”

He sent her a raspberry emoji. It wasn’t precisely her MO, but she let him have the last word. Maybe…maybe things with him could be different. She looked at the sketch of herself, her facial expression strangely open. Yeah, she was pretty sure Steve was going to be something new and unknown and. And better.


End file.
